Manchin: ‘Stop the Lies’

April 21, 2013

On the Senate floor last week, I quoted John Adams' famous remark that "facts are stubborn things." It was my way of warning the groups who were spreading misinformation about my criminal and mental background check legislation that facts, not lies, ultimately prevail.

Unfortunately, my commonsense bill had a setback this week. The legislation got bipartisan support from a majority of Senators, but it fell short of the 60 votes it needed to pass in the Senate. The vote left a lot of people who supported our bill disappointed.

I'm disappointed, but I'm also determined - because everybody who knows me knows that, like the facts John Adams spoke about, I'm pretty doggone stubborn myself, especially when the facts are on my side.

I am determined to do all I can to protect American citizens, especially our children, from the kind of senseless violence we have seen committed by criminals and the violently mentally insane.

I will not back down until we've won this fight - not just to protect the public's safety, but also to protect the Second Amendment, which is what my bill also does.

I'm sick and tired of people who don't know the first thing about guns, the role they have played in American history or their part in our culture today, looking at me and other law-abiding gun owners as if we're doing something wrong because we like guns and hunting and marksmanship.

Most gun owners in West Virginia and all across this country are responsible and law-abiding. They use their guns for hunting, shooting and self-defense. The Second Amendment guarantees them the right to do so, and I will never do anything to infringe on that fundamental right.

In fact, the criminal and mental background check legislation I introduced in the Senate with Republican Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania not only protects the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans - it actually strengthens them.

It does so by applying the existing rules for criminal and mental background checks at federally licensed gun stores to gun shows and Internet sales to ultimately stop criminals and the dangerously mentally ill from getting guns.

It is just common sense to have one rule for everybody.

Opponents said our legislation would undermine the Second Amendment by leading to a national registry of gun owners and making it a crime for relatives, friends or neighbors to sell, give or loan guns to each other.

Those claims are simply not true.

It's already against the law to create a national registry of gun owners. But the Manchin-Toomey bill would take this protection of the Second Amendment a giant step forward - it reaffirms the ban on the federal government from creating a registry and, for the first time, would make it a felony to do so, punishable by up to 15 years in prison.

Our bill also preserves important background check exemptions in our current law, like temporary transfers. That way, for example, you could loan your hunting rifle to your buddy without any new restrictions or requirements.

Our bill also makes it clear that transfers between family, friends and neighbors will not require background checks. That's the law now, and there's no reason to change it.

You can sell or loan a gun to your brother, your neighbor, your co-worker without a background check. You can give your grandchild a gun without a background check. You can post a gun for sale on the bulletin board at your church or your job without a background check.

Our legislation also strengthens the Second Amendment by creating a fair appeals process for veterans who may have been wrongly or prematurely categorized as unfit to own or purchase firearms. What an irony - and what a tragedy - it would be for veterans to lose some of the rights they fought so hard to protect.

Our bill expands gun rights in other ways that law-abiding gun owners, like myself, have sought for years.

It will allow interstate handgun sales from licensed dealers. Outdated current law only allows interstate sales of rifles and shotguns. Updating the law will bring more sales into the background check system.

It will allow active military to buy firearms in their home states and the state in which they are stationed. Current law restricts purchases to their duty station.

It will allow dealer-to-dealer sales at gun shows taking place in a state in which they are not a resident. Currently those sales are only permitted for dealers from the same state in which the gun show is held.

And it will authorize the use of a state concealed carry permit that has been issued within the last five years in lieu of a background check when purchasing a firearm from a dealer.

From the time we introduced our legislation, I have said this about it:

If you are a law-abiding gun owner, you should like our bill.

If you are a believer in the Second Amendment right of Americans to keep and bear arms, you should like our bill.

If you want to treat veterans with the dignity and respect they deserve, you should like our bill.

If you are looking for ways to keep our citizens safe from mass violence, especially our precious children, you should like our bill.

But if you are a criminal, a drug dealer, a terrorist, or if a court has declared that you are a threat to yourself or others, you probably won't like my bill because I'm making it harder for dangerous people to get guns.